Sarah Gainer's work stems from a curiosity surrounding human self-consciousness and how that self-consciousness informs photography as a medium. Her photography also reveals her interest in children, adolescents, and their interaction with varied environments.

She has been drawn to photographing children because they often lack the self-consciousness to which adults are so prone. Children are in awe of their own movements and physicalities but often possess freeness in expression and an unmolded sense of self-censorship in both new and familiar environments.

What fascinates Sarah in the everyday subject is how extensively self-consciousness is heightened in pedestrian pose when one places an adult human subject in front of the camera; the subject censors him or herself knowing that this photograph will capture and document a single moment in time. Sarah's goal in her current work is to evoke this freeness of pose in front of the camera and to explore how subjects react to a variety of environments through her work as a photographer.